October 05, 2009

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- The state plans an immediate appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court of a decision delaying an execution three weeks after problems with a separate lethal injection attempt.

Ohio Attorney General spokeswoman Holly Hollingsworth says the state will file an appeal Monday opposing any delay in Thursday's planned execution of Lawrence Reynolds Jr.

A panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled 2-1 Monday to halt the execution of Reynolds, sentenced to die for strangling his 67-year-old neighbor in Cuyahoga Falls in 1994.

The judges based their decision on problems accessing the veins of condemned killer Romell Broom that led Gov. Ted Strickland to stop that execution Sept. 15.

The state argues that problems accessing Broom's veins doesn't mean that other inmates can't be executed properly.

PREVIOUS STORY:Court Halts Ohio Execution, Cites Injection Flaws

CINCINNATI (AP) -- A federal appeals court on Monday halted the execution of an inmate three weeks after problems with a lethal injection attempt.

A panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled 2-1 to grant the request of 43-year-old Lawrence Reynolds Jr., who had been sentenced to die for strangling his 67-year-old neighbor during a 1994 robbery.

On Sept. 15, Gov. Ted Strickland stopped the lethal injection of Romell Broom after state executioners struggled for two hours to find a usable vein.

Broom's execution is on hold while his attorneys prepare for a Nov. 30 federal court hearing. They argue that an unprecedented second execution attempt on Broom violates a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

"Given the important constitutional and humanitarian issues at stake in all death penalty cases, these problems in the Ohio lethal injection protocol are certainly worthy of meaningful consideration," Martin wrote.

He said U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost should consider the cases of Broom and Reynolds together in November.

Judge Jeffrey Sutton dissented, arguing that the state's policy addresses a scenario where repeated attempts to find a vein are unusable.

"Why assume an execution protocol is unconstitutional when one of the humane features of the protocol -- that the State will not continue trying to access a usable vein beyond a sensible time limit -- is being followed?" Sutton wrote.

Gov. Ted Strickland's decision to stop Broom's execution appears to be unprecedented since capital punishment was declared constitutional and the nation resumed executions in the 1970s. Inmates in several states have experienced delays with the injection of lethal chemicals, but those executions always proceeded the same day.

September 21, 2009

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- As the United States lags on climate legislation, the U.N. climate chief says China is poised to join the European Union in claiming "front-runner" status among nations battling climate change.

Yvo de Boer said in an Associated Press interview Monday that China is leaping ahead of the United States with domestic plans for more energy efficiency, renewable sources of power, cuts in vehicle pollution and closures of dirty plants.

"China and India have announced very ambitious national climate change plans. In the case of China, so ambitious that it could well become the front-runner in the fight to address climate change," de Boer said. "The big question mark is the U.S."

He spoke on the eve of a U.N. summit of 100 world leaders intended to rally momentum for crafting a new global climate pact at Copenhagen, Denmark in December. Bush had rejected the 1997 Kyoto Protocol for cutting global emissions of warming gases based on its exclusion of major developing nations like China and India.

Chinese President Hu Jintao will announce new plans to fight global warming at a U.N. summit on climate change on Tuesday. China already has said it is seeking to use 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

China and the U.S. together account for about 40 percent of all the world's emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other industrial warming gases.

De Boer said he also was encouraged by Japan's new goal of a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020.

President Barack Obama has been trying to build momentum for a new climate pact to succeed the Kyoto accord that required mandatory cuts in atmospheric warming gases expires but expires at the end of 2012. His administration has announced a target of returning to 1990 levels of greenhouse emissions by 2020.

But with Congress moving slowly on a measure to curb emissions, the United States could soon find itself with little influence when 120 countries convene in Copenhagen.